The Lot
by DanSRose
Summary: A Dark Tower Story: The lot picks an odd NY boy to be its protector and the recorder in this world of other worlds next door. (More to come on the boy)
1. Default Chapter

The lot was still there. The city would not do anything with it. A surveyor, coming home from his secretary's or back to work after a power-lunch, would check it out every once in a while. The few people in the ten-odd years who did not run off screaming after getting mid-way into the lot, would drop their plans inexplicitly, not even remembering that they had a plan or there was a lot.

But, things were not well now. Mills Construction and Sombra Real Estate had bought out the land and for almost six-years battled in and out of court what to do about it. Now, Turtle Bay Condominiums were set to begin its groundbreaking in November. This bothered me beyond words.

I have lived in this city all my life. My first seven years were Queens, so I'm not sure if that counts though. When I got bumped up a grade, we moved to the Lower East Side. Something like that. I first found the lot when I was nine, my first lone foot tour of this city. I was drawn to it. Now that I know what that lot is, I know I was drawn to it.

It is unusually quiet here. I'm here right now. It is a door. I figured that out when I found three newspapers scattered throughout it when I was ten. The first was from Topeka unusually fresh though it was dated from May 1977 with a red-circled article about a boy who was killed by a blue Cadillac under suspicious circumstances. The incident happened a few blocks away. The second was a horrible disease that was sweeping across the nation. It was from the L.A. Times and they were calling Captain Tripps. The writer was ripping apart President Reagan, the EPA for some reason, the FDA, and everyone else. The writer was scared, as was everyone else. The third, all in one paper, told about a writer who was kidnapped and tortured by one his big fans, a beloved schoolteacher who fell into a coma after a car crash, and a review of the newly rebuilt Overlook Hotel. 

I love reading and the movies. Something was wrong with these. Hell, I even had some of them on bookshelf. I have a bunch in my DVD collection now.

I'm home now. I can only spend so long in the lot. I can still feel it echoing hundreds of realities into orbit around that flower. Nothing is coincidence in the lot. It's a like a glitch in the Matrix, but this real. Beyond real. It is scary to experience every timeline possible. It is beyond words. I have to stop the condominiums. I do not know where the flower goes to, but I know what it goes to.

I learned when I left one day and returned to a timeline where I never existed. It took two days to learn that the lot was the reason I was there. The reality of it was scarier than you can think. I got back by asking. I asked the lot, more like screamed in it, to send me back. I know it was the rose who actually did it. A security officer who walked the beat past the lot that I made friends with asked me what was wrong, if I was hurt, and it was silly place for a smart boy like me to be. I figured was either back or somewhere close enough. The rose took care of those missing days for me.

I figure that the unusual amount of trash in the lot is not so much trash as interdimensional dust. It just randomly flows in. Like my first visit and every other one since. 

I know the lot and the flower want me here. It is the only reason why I see the things in there. The floating faces of others. The other worlds next door. It is because I write it all down. Everything I see. It goes straight into my notebook. Notebooks, now. 

There was a problem, though. There is always a problem. My mother found one I left out on my desk, about a door that to place where the Yellow Eye was already in control. The therapist who she took it to thought I should "go away from the city" for a bit. It meant medication and a nice padded cell. I was not happy about that. 

I got back a few months ago. I missed about three months of high school and now have the label of the crazy guy. I'm not saying I'm not. I have every reason to be. But I'm fine enough. When I got back to the lot, I saw the sign with the construction start-date. That was when the rose showed me what it was. I actually took my medication that night and did not go back for four days. To see it, the Tower, your mind explodes.

I know that the group, or whatever they are calling themselves in their strange language, is getting very close to It.

I also know that I am going to have to do some industrial sabotage to prevent construction. The crawling darkness is creeping closer to the lot. Further into this world. 


	2. The Retreat

My name is Trevor, by the way. I think that is important; a name. It roots us, me, to the world. And I've seen my fair share of other worlds. 

I'm not broken either. Inside, outside, psychologically, spiritually. I'm fine like the times. I'm terrified beyond belief, but I'm fine. 

After my mother took me away to the retreat, I wouldn't talk to anyone. You can imagine, the worst betrayal, especially when you knew that there was something more important to do. Naturally, I grew angry. Then the dreams started and they scared me worse than anything else. I needed to talk to someone.

It went something like this: I was registered to be at private counseling, my fourth session, and decided to just let go and say something.

~~~~~~13~~~~~~

"Okay, just let me talk. This is my third session and I am still very upset at being here. I know my mother cares about me, but it was my writing. I want to be a writer and it was an exercise." So I lied. What else could I do? "Yes, I know I have problems, lots of problems. I cut class, I ditch homework. The normal semi-rebellious kid stuff. I am not handling raising myself, with a business relationship with the housekeeper and guest appearances from mommy dearest."

"What about your father?" Dr. Esner was an early fifty, pepper-haired, blazer wearing sympathetic, caring, wise, nurturing, ever-watchful, psychiatrist. In the three previous sessions, where I just stared out the window, she just stared out with me and read my case file, both to herself and aloud. 

"Father? Vat ees dis fadder you speak of?" I shot back, my worst German accent. "He comes by every month or so. He picks me up and takes me to a ballgame or to some store or to an interesting client he has. I don't even like baseball. I doubt if he even knows I am here, in this 'happy farm'."

"Why are you talking to me now?" 

"The meat of it: I'm having horrible nightmares and I think it's because of what I write. But that's not quite it. I think it's a mix of everything." I told her, to the bare minimum, about the lot. How it was the only place where it feels like I'm at home. How I had the horrible feeling something bag was going to happen to it, which was silly, because it was only a lot. We psychoanalyzed the lot, the rose, the dreams, my mother, my father, and everything else. We did it for three months. 

In that time, I analyzed my nightmares and came to see them as a window into what was happening in the worlds next door. Lots of images of Mid-World screamed at me. The Yellow Eye had taken a huge loss, something about a boy, the low men, and a detective. And had the gunslinger moved much closer. The Eye was positioning itself and getting ready to strike.

Then, I got home and ran to the lot, saw the sign and, in the middle of Manhattan, screamed. 


	3. Planning Asleep

To say the least I slept well that night. A great drug-induced, hazed over sleep. Then, right before I woke up, I had the strangest dream. 

Essentially, it was the vision Eddie had; the one where he, Susannah, Jake, and Oy visited the lot on the day of its destruction. The details were the same; the same movie poster for The Craft and an ad for an Adam Sandler show, the garbage was there, as well as the bulldozer, manned by Bob the Engineer, then Tick-Tock, then the gunslinger himself. 

But mine had some subtle differences then Eddie's. There were no Twin Towers looming far off in the background. Everyone was smoking outside their office buildings and restaurants and getting dirty looks for it. The city, as a whole, was much cleaner and there was a large protest outside the UN building. This protest was against something different, nothing normal or the stuff that has been going in the last few months. It was different- something big was happening and almost of everyone did not like it.

In this dream, as Roland was flattening the lot and the rose, I made my way over to the rally. Yellow Eye Industries, Inc. had bought out the Alaskan Refuge, thirty-percent of the Amazon, Costa Rica, western Siberia, Tibet, and Nepal. No one had heard of this company before and it was already the wealthiest corporation that had ever existed. Though it drastically improved living conditions for most of the people living in the "acquired" regions, they were receiving slave-pay, had a high rate of on the job accidents, mostly from imploding buildings and hand-eating machines, and had a high infant mortality rate, from SIDS, insufficient medical attention, and birth defects.

YEI, as it was called started as a construction company and eventually went into demolition. Demolition led to high-grade weapons and explosives, which led to robotics and technology, which led to biotech and medicine. Sitting on top of it all was a man named Jon Farson. I know this because I read the fliers the protesters were giving out. This Farson seems different than Roland's Farson; this one was smarter- a high class, cutthroat businessman all the way. And surprise of surprises, his second in command, whispering in his ear, was person only known as Flagg. Rumor had it that this Farson was starting up a new nuclear energy and weapons program, in addition to a super-technology and communications sub-corporation known as North Central Positronics.

Then I got my little hint on what I have to do. I went back to the lot, but it was not there. In its place was the corporate headquarters of YEI, a converted condominium complex with the main lobby right on top of the lot. The corporate logo, a yellow eye, was looking up and outward and I swore its horrifying pupil was focusing in on me. As I screamed silently awake, I realized that the pupil was right where the rose used to be. 

~~~~~~13~~~~~~

The next day I surveyed the site, examined the garbage, and started to plan what I would need to stop it all. Regular industrial sabotage couldn't work; a multinational corporation doesn't simply roll over and play dead. Foresight and prophecy doesn't work well when protesting, so that would not work either.

Something new, something else has to work. 

Something from the inside, maybe? 

The rose gave the answer. A newspaper blew over and wrapped itself around my shoe. "Interns Wanted: Up-starting Construction Company Wants Creative Ambitious Young People In A New Architecture Project In Manhattan. Call R. Flagg For An Interview", followed a number.

I bent down and kissed the rose. "Thank you." Then I left and made a phone call. 


End file.
